As Microsoft products make the trip across the Pacific, it’s not unusual for features to get lost at sea. After Windows Phone Mango Beta 2 ROM bits were released to the wild yesterday, a quick headcount reveals a surprising number of features that survived the journey – including both RTM and new Mango features.

Here’s what works in the current Mango build when the system region is set to English (United Kingdom) and search region is set to English (Australia) like the default without the region hack.

Improved: Speech recognition now supports the full function set (calling, texting, Bing search)

Improved: Bing Maps now shows local search listings (e.g. Bunnings) with basic information (address search still tend to default to UK, add state or “Australia” to search to lock to Australia)

Together with the possibility that the Zune collection and Zune Pass will finally see the light of day outside of the US, Mango is finally going to set things straight for Australians and many other countries around the world. There’s still room for improvement but the wins easily outweigh the loss.

P.S. The developer Mango beta NDA agreement has since been corrected to allow for public disclosure and screenshots.

I won’t believe MS will release Zune functionality to Australians till I see a confirmed release date from them. They’ve been dragging the coming soon banner too long and until they release it they’ll play second fiddle to iPhone.

really? Even if I have set all these language+region settings to English (US), music search still doesn’t show on Bing. Maybe it’s because my Zune Account is Australia, just like I don’t have access to the Zune music marketplace either.